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The hardest part of this to me to deal with is that it’s the truth. For decades, the conservative line was if you give people money they’ll just blow it on gamb

The hardest part of this to me to deal with is that it’s the truth. For decades, the conservative line was if you give people money they’ll just blow it on gambling and booze. Turns out it’s true.

birksherty 4y ago
Many people need that money. It's absurd Americans judging at normal people spending money, but same people ok with companies making record profit during pandemic, the minimum wage limit etc. It's pathetic.
- ok_dad 4y ago
  No kidding, a few well off tech bros use the stimulus to gamble and suddenly every family who actually needed that money was a waste? Was the government just supposed to lower taxes for corporations and the rich yet again?!
  - 8ytecoder 4y ago
    It's the usual way people react to their favorite partition talking points. There's a good amount of research that suggests that people saved their stimulus money. Not everyone spent and not everyone gambled it. https://jsri.msu.edu/publications/nexo/vol-xxv/no-1-fall-2021/impact-of-the-coronavirus-stimulus-checks-on-the-economy https://jsri.msu.edu/publications/nexo/vol-xxv/no-1-fall-202...
  - MandieD 4y ago
    It would have been even better had the Paycheck Protection Program worked more like Kurzarbeit does in Germany - instead of just giving money to employers on the promise that they'd use it to protect jobs, insist that the employers use it to pay the wages that employees were going to be missing due to reduced hours, and have to prove that that's where the money went. Kurzarbeit was one of the main reasons my employer survived the ill-timed purchase of another German industrial giant (deal done right before the 2008-9 financial crisis kicked off, payment due during said financial crisis) without having to lay people off, and left it in the position to get right back into the game once the world economy started improving. And, of course, spared thousands of working people a lot of misery.
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      Remember what the administration was that put it into place. It was never meant to help people and systems for tracking down where the money went and how it was used were struck from the bills by certain groups of people who usually spend their time saying that you have to add anti-drug rules to government handouts or else the welfare queens will just bleed your country dry.
      - MandieD 4y ago
        Yeah, forgot about that. Worked as designed for the benefit of the minor nobility... er, "job creators".
tomc1985 4y ago
And so what if it is? With the rate that tech is going to be putting people out of jobs, most folks are going to have shit for options. Let the privileged folks have their fun, so the unprivileged can eat and not worry so much.
- dominotw 4y ago
  > And so what if it is? Causes asset inflation making them out of reach for the 'unprivileged'. See housing market.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Housing market appreciation happens because homeowners vote to restrict housing supply. Turns out it’s hard to convince people to vote for lowering the price of something when most of their net worth is tied up in it.
    - cudgy 4y ago
      Ridiculous housing appreciation is practically a global phenomena that is due to artificially low interest rates and easy credit driven by many of the central banks around the world. What you describe (housing supply restrictions) is a local phenomena in a few markets like San Francisco and not the primary reason behind the incredible speculative nature of the recent housing market. China has been building in hyper-sonic mode for decades and look at the bubble happening there, for example.
      - aikinai 4y ago
        Japan has the lowest rates in the developed world and a very generous central bank but no housing appreciation. No one expects housing to appreciate (except in limited, specific situations) and then no one votes or sets policy specifically to prop up prices. There’s a dynamic market with plenty of development and supply in the right types of housing and price points and everyone’s happy pretty much.
somesortofthing 4y ago
It's hardly surprising that given breathing room, people who live in miserable poverty will spend on things they couldn't previously afford. "Man cannot live on bread alone" is a pretty old concept. As for the people who already could afford the necessities of life, why not have a bit more fun than normal?
sillysaurusx 4y ago
Ah yes, it’s completely fair that the only people who should be morally allowed to participate in the financial apparatus that sometimes leads to getting rich, are the people who are already rich. I see no incongruities whatsoever with this logic. rapid eye blinking Bunch of people lost money. Some of them got rich. Booze is good and gambling is fun and it’s ok to blow their own money on exactly the things that everyone else blows their money on. (This hits on the idea of “accredited investor,” and I have such a hard time not calling out that it’s a mechanism for already-rich people to participate in every deal that could make not-rich people rich. And that there are very few other ways to earn a fortune when you only have $10k in the bank. I lost my dad’s $11k when mt Gox exploded, which is objectively stupid. Meanwhile my friend is now a multi millionaire simply because he didn’t lose his coins and didn’t sell them. Was he stupid? Did I blow my money on gambling, but he was just lucky?) Didn’t mean to rant, but it is what it is. You’re not wrong though.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lmm 4y ago
  The accredited investor rules aren't what's locking out individuals from getting the deals that are actually worth something. Those deals are already buttoned up by the connected VC folks. Look at the endless string of ponzis that get advertised to a typical doctor or dentist, that's all you're missing out on. I agree that the rules are overly crude and that in principle there should be some more equitable way to achieve the same way. But I'm also very confident that those rules have stopped a lot of people losing all their money and killing themselves. > Meanwhile my friend is now a multi millionaire simply because he didn’t lose his coins and didn’t sell them. Was he stupid? Did I blow my money on gambling, but he was just lucky? Yes. You both did a stupid gamble and one of you got lucky for now. There's no broader lesson to take from that.
- Lazare 4y ago
  > Ah yes, it’s completely fair that the only people who should be morally allowed to participate in the financial apparatus that sometimes leads to getting rich, are the people who are already rich. I agree with your overall point, but to be clear, we're talking about day trading. There's a lot of arguments you could have about banning casinos, pro and con, but "hey, some poor person might win big on the quarter slot machines" isn't a good argument. Also, the median "accredited investor" is a dentist from Topeka who's about to get suckered by an advance fee fraud. Being an accredited investor doesn't automatically give you access to good deals. There just isn't a pool of amazing investments out there hungry for capital but being stopped by investor protection laws. (But there is a pool of scams...) (Note that I'm not saying that the system is good or fair or just; I'm just saying mechanically, accredited investor laws aren't the part of the system stopping you from getting rich.)
seventhtiger 4y ago
And a massive increase in crypto scams. And a massive increase in collectibles prices like trading cards and old video games. So much cash sloshing around. Everything inflated except the consumer price index (especially if you adjust the automotive, fuel, and electronics sectors of CPI because those price increases reflect supply issues rather than stimulus demand). Where did all that money go? The untargeted stimulus just enabled mob madness and scams paid for by tax dollars. Wealth redistribution from the tax payer to the dishonest and lucky.
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
This is why my country forces people to put a part of their monthly paycheck into a retirement fund. Most people just have no financial skills and will just get slaughtered on the stock markets. Others refuse to save money for their retirement at all.
twblalock 4y ago
The same realization applies to UBI. What we had, in effect, was the closest thing we will ever get to a nationwide short-term UBI experiment and it was a complete disaster. The worst fears about UBI were realized with just a few payments: people gambling with the money, creating stock bubbles with meme stocks, and contributing to a rapid rise in inflation. People will say that wasn't really UBI -- but it's the closest we have ever been to it and probably the closest practical implementation we could ever expect from our government, and with "real" UBI people would have been given even more free money.
- LambdaComplex 4y ago
  > People will say that wasn't really UBI Which makes sense, because it wasn't. A key point of UBI is its consistency: you know you are getting that money every month, indefinitely, and therefore can plan/budget accordingly. A one-time payment? Okay, sure, I can use that to cover my rent this month, but then it's not doing me any good. So why pay my rent with it when I can go gamble with it and maybe luck out? > and with "real" UBI people would have been given even more free money. tldr: the point isn't the amount of money, it's the consistency.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    There were multiple rounds of stimulus payments.
    - Jcowell 4y ago
      That were uncertain. UBI premises hinges on certainty.
- nemo44x 4y ago
  The problem is being smart lands you in positions of power today but being wise has no value towards that. Everyone knows UBI can’t possibly work but enough people who are or think they are smart will find every way possible to convince themselves and others it not only can work but it’s obvious why it will. Ignoring thousands of years of humans that said “no”. We have a paleo-phobia problem today where for whatever reason there are a lot of people that are pretty sure the entire history of humanity has been wrong about most things and we are the fortunate ones to know better, today. Without ever considering that we are possibly just cascading our problems due to our unwise choices. Regardless, history has shown that decadence is the end of a culture.

birksherty 4y ago

Many people need that money. It's absurd Americans judging at normal people spending money, but same people ok with companies making record profit during pandemic, the minimum wage limit etc. It's pathetic.

ok_dad 4y ago
No kidding, a few well off tech bros use the stimulus to gamble and suddenly every family who actually needed that money was a waste? Was the government just supposed to lower taxes for corporations and the rich yet again?!
- 8ytecoder 4y ago
  It's the usual way people react to their favorite partition talking points. There's a good amount of research that suggests that people saved their stimulus money. Not everyone spent and not everyone gambled it. https://jsri.msu.edu/publications/nexo/vol-xxv/no-1-fall-2021/impact-of-the-coronavirus-stimulus-checks-on-the-economy https://jsri.msu.edu/publications/nexo/vol-xxv/no-1-fall-202...
- MandieD 4y ago
  It would have been even better had the Paycheck Protection Program worked more like Kurzarbeit does in Germany - instead of just giving money to employers on the promise that they'd use it to protect jobs, insist that the employers use it to pay the wages that employees were going to be missing due to reduced hours, and have to prove that that's where the money went. Kurzarbeit was one of the main reasons my employer survived the ill-timed purchase of another German industrial giant (deal done right before the 2008-9 financial crisis kicked off, payment due during said financial crisis) without having to lay people off, and left it in the position to get right back into the game once the world economy started improving. And, of course, spared thousands of working people a lot of misery.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Remember what the administration was that put it into place. It was never meant to help people and systems for tracking down where the money went and how it was used were struck from the bills by certain groups of people who usually spend their time saying that you have to add anti-drug rules to government handouts or else the welfare queens will just bleed your country dry.
    - MandieD 4y ago
      Yeah, forgot about that. Worked as designed for the benefit of the minor nobility... er, "job creators".

tomc1985 4y ago

And so what if it is? With the rate that tech is going to be putting people out of jobs, most folks are going to have shit for options. Let the privileged folks have their fun, so the unprivileged can eat and not worry so much.

dominotw 4y ago
> And so what if it is? Causes asset inflation making them out of reach for the 'unprivileged'. See housing market.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Housing market appreciation happens because homeowners vote to restrict housing supply. Turns out it’s hard to convince people to vote for lowering the price of something when most of their net worth is tied up in it.
  - cudgy 4y ago
    Ridiculous housing appreciation is practically a global phenomena that is due to artificially low interest rates and easy credit driven by many of the central banks around the world. What you describe (housing supply restrictions) is a local phenomena in a few markets like San Francisco and not the primary reason behind the incredible speculative nature of the recent housing market. China has been building in hyper-sonic mode for decades and look at the bubble happening there, for example.
    - aikinai 4y ago
      Japan has the lowest rates in the developed world and a very generous central bank but no housing appreciation. No one expects housing to appreciate (except in limited, specific situations) and then no one votes or sets policy specifically to prop up prices. There’s a dynamic market with plenty of development and supply in the right types of housing and price points and everyone’s happy pretty much.

somesortofthing 4y ago

It's hardly surprising that given breathing room, people who live in miserable poverty will spend on things they couldn't previously afford. "Man cannot live on bread alone" is a pretty old concept. As for the people who already could afford the necessities of life, why not have a bit more fun than normal?

sillysaurusx 4y ago

Ah yes, it’s completely fair that the only people who should be morally allowed to participate in the financial apparatus that sometimes leads to getting rich, are the people who are already rich. I see no incongruities whatsoever with this logic. rapid eye blinking Bunch of people lost money. Some of them got rich. Booze is good and gambling is fun and it’s ok to blow their own money on exactly the things that everyone else blows their money on. (This hits on the idea of “accredited investor,” and I have such a hard time not calling out that it’s a mechanism for already-rich people to participate in every deal that could make not-rich people rich. And that there are very few other ways to earn a fortune when you only have $10k in the bank. I lost my dad’s $11k when mt Gox exploded, which is objectively stupid. Meanwhile my friend is now a multi millionaire simply because he didn’t lose his coins and didn’t sell them. Was he stupid? Did I blow my money on gambling, but he was just lucky?) Didn’t mean to rant, but it is what it is. You’re not wrong though.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lmm 4y ago
The accredited investor rules aren't what's locking out individuals from getting the deals that are actually worth something. Those deals are already buttoned up by the connected VC folks. Look at the endless string of ponzis that get advertised to a typical doctor or dentist, that's all you're missing out on. I agree that the rules are overly crude and that in principle there should be some more equitable way to achieve the same way. But I'm also very confident that those rules have stopped a lot of people losing all their money and killing themselves. > Meanwhile my friend is now a multi millionaire simply because he didn’t lose his coins and didn’t sell them. Was he stupid? Did I blow my money on gambling, but he was just lucky? Yes. You both did a stupid gamble and one of you got lucky for now. There's no broader lesson to take from that.
Lazare 4y ago
> Ah yes, it’s completely fair that the only people who should be morally allowed to participate in the financial apparatus that sometimes leads to getting rich, are the people who are already rich. I agree with your overall point, but to be clear, we're talking about day trading. There's a lot of arguments you could have about banning casinos, pro and con, but "hey, some poor person might win big on the quarter slot machines" isn't a good argument. Also, the median "accredited investor" is a dentist from Topeka who's about to get suckered by an advance fee fraud. Being an accredited investor doesn't automatically give you access to good deals. There just isn't a pool of amazing investments out there hungry for capital but being stopped by investor protection laws. (But there is a pool of scams...) (Note that I'm not saying that the system is good or fair or just; I'm just saying mechanically, accredited investor laws aren't the part of the system stopping you from getting rich.)

seventhtiger 4y ago

And a massive increase in crypto scams. And a massive increase in collectibles prices like trading cards and old video games. So much cash sloshing around. Everything inflated except the consumer price index (especially if you adjust the automotive, fuel, and electronics sectors of CPI because those price increases reflect supply issues rather than stimulus demand). Where did all that money go? The untargeted stimulus just enabled mob madness and scams paid for by tax dollars. Wealth redistribution from the tax payer to the dishonest and lucky.

MomoXenosaga 4y ago

This is why my country forces people to put a part of their monthly paycheck into a retirement fund. Most people just have no financial skills and will just get slaughtered on the stock markets. Others refuse to save money for their retirement at all.

twblalock 4y ago

The same realization applies to UBI. What we had, in effect, was the closest thing we will ever get to a nationwide short-term UBI experiment and it was a complete disaster. The worst fears about UBI were realized with just a few payments: people gambling with the money, creating stock bubbles with meme stocks, and contributing to a rapid rise in inflation. People will say that wasn't really UBI -- but it's the closest we have ever been to it and probably the closest practical implementation we could ever expect from our government, and with "real" UBI people would have been given even more free money.

LambdaComplex 4y ago
> People will say that wasn't really UBI Which makes sense, because it wasn't. A key point of UBI is its consistency: you know you are getting that money every month, indefinitely, and therefore can plan/budget accordingly. A one-time payment? Okay, sure, I can use that to cover my rent this month, but then it's not doing me any good. So why pay my rent with it when I can go gamble with it and maybe luck out? > and with "real" UBI people would have been given even more free money. tldr: the point isn't the amount of money, it's the consistency.
- twblalock 4y ago
  There were multiple rounds of stimulus payments.
  - Jcowell 4y ago
    That were uncertain. UBI premises hinges on certainty.
nemo44x 4y ago
The problem is being smart lands you in positions of power today but being wise has no value towards that. Everyone knows UBI can’t possibly work but enough people who are or think they are smart will find every way possible to convince themselves and others it not only can work but it’s obvious why it will. Ignoring thousands of years of humans that said “no”. We have a paleo-phobia problem today where for whatever reason there are a lot of people that are pretty sure the entire history of humanity has been wrong about most things and we are the fortunate ones to know better, today. Without ever considering that we are possibly just cascading our problems due to our unwise choices. Regardless, history has shown that decadence is the end of a culture.